World On Fire
by laughinginthebreeze
Summary: They were imprisoned for being monsters, misled heroes. Except they're done being controlled and manipulated. Now, they're turning the tables. Now, they're out, and they hunger for revenge on the very people they trusted the most. May be later rated M for future scenes. AU after S7.
1. Chapter 1

They were imprisoned for being monsters, misled heroes. Now they are being freed to die for monsters. Except they're done being controlled and manipulated. Now, they're turning the tables. Now, they're out, and they hunger for revenge.

World On Fire.

 **I guess this is a sort of AU set after season 7? I don't know, but I do know I'm writing it because I felt the finale didn't do justice to the season at all. Firstly, I'm changing a few things: Caroline and Alaric never got engaged, because their pairing didn't make sense, and Caroline apparently is marrying him for all the wrong reasons on the show, so it's best to just say that they were raising the twins together, and I am actually going to write my speculation on what COULD have been in the vault.**

 **Richmond.**

Enzo hated morning people.

He just didn't understand them, how they had the energy to be so cheery and happy so early in the day, which was why instead of going to his job he didn't need on time, he got up an hour later to join Bonnie, one of those morning people, who was munching happily on cereal.

Okay, she was an exception.

"Hey." He smiled.

"Hey," she sipped some juice before speaking. "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Yeah, but I thought I'd spend a few extra minutes with my girl." He smiled. She looked at him.

"Yeah right, lazy bugger."

"Hey, it's a six o'clock shift, no way I'm going in that early. It's like the middle of the night!" He argued, kissing her forehead.

"Hmm, absolutely." She nodded. He grinned, heading for the fridge and pulling out some milk. The post slid through their door and landed on the doormat.

"Is that the post?" Bonnie asked once she finished chewing.

"Yeah, hang on." He walked over and picked up the small pile. Just as he was sifting through, he came across something that made him freeze in horror.

"What is it?" Asked Bonnie, noticing his lack of movement. He looked up at her, face drained of colour.

"Come look at this." He said hoarsely. Frowning, she did so, and when he handed her the postcard, she too, stopped in her tracks. They looked at each other, fearful, breakfast completely forgotten.

"You know what this means, right?" Bonnie asked, eyebrows raised at him in worry.

Enzo looked at the postcard, the incriminating scribbles that meant so much more than anyone could have imagined.

"They're coming back. For us."

 **-X-**

 **The Armoury, West Virginia, eleven hours ago.**

Jason Drinkwell sorted the last of his files into the cabinet into alphabetical order before packing up for the night. It had been a long day; the files for the participants, he swore, had doubled in size since last week, and afterwards the cameras in the entire building had been hacked, and he as one of the few IT technicians, had had to download all the CCTV footage and email it out to his boss before saving it onto a USB to take home for further examination. Standard protocol if you wanted to live up to the expectations of your job, especially if that job was in the Armoury.

He picked up his suitcase and went to take out his USB from the port, when he noticed it wasn't there. Frowning, he searched his pockets and scanned the tables, but it seemed to have disappeared into thin air, and he could have sworn he had left it in the port to finish the download.

"Looking for this?" A man spoke from behind him. He whirled around, and saw a tall man, taller than him at least, with green eyes, with a blue shirt and matching trousers; the standard uniform for the participants, Jason realised, with cold horror. He didn't know all of them, having only seen a few photos, but this man he knew looked vaguely familiar to him. In his clenched hand, he held the USB stick.

"Yeah, it's um..." Jason couldn't think of anything to say, and something cold and crazy in the man's eyes made him take a subconscious step backwards. "Uh...how did you - how did you escape?" Were stupidly the only words that came out of his mouth.

"Aw, how cute, you've gone as pale as a sheet!" He grinned manically. "Look, shadow self, he's so scared he looks like he's about to have a heart attack!"

Jason jumped when another figure appeared from the shadows. Another man appeared, identical to the one in front of him.

"That's the effect you tend to have on people." He smiled, almost fondly at his twin, before focusing on Jason, who gulped nervously in response to the predatory gleam in this one's eyes.

"Urgh, don't be so sullen." He tossed the USB into the air. "So, ah…"

"Jason." Said man filled in shakily.

"Jason. You work for the Armoury, correct?" The one with his USB asked.

"Just - just handling the paperwork. Paperwork in an office, away from the actual cells." He stammered

"So you know what the Armoury have been up to?" The man persisted. A cold smirk hovered on his lips.

Jason shrank back away from those piercing eyes, looking frantically for an exit route. He spotted the fire escape out of the corner of his eye, opposite his office and instincts took over. He turned on his heel and legged it, speeding past the man out the office, feet pummeling the ground as they reached their goal.

"Aw, no, don't go!" One of the men called after him. "We're just getting started!"

Jason kept running, willing himself to move forward, to not look back, keep moving towards the door.

" _Ey dome._ " The man muttered, and he felt his legs give way beneath him, a mysterious force dragging him back on his stomach to them. Then he was yanked up by the man, and sat down in a chair.

Great, so one guy was a witch, the other...

Well, he wasn't entirely sure _what_ the other one was yet, witch or vampire, lack of witchy powers made him believe vampire, but he knew what else they both were. Doppelgängers. It made sense, if one of them was a witch, the other immortal. Why would the Armoury have had them if they were both just vampires?

Which meant, out of the few most notorious supernatural beings they had taken into capture, they could only be...

 _Shit..._ His mind was racing into overdrive. "Oh God, you-you're him, aren't you? The first immortal. You're..."

"Silas, yeah yeah, perfect specimen of man, etcetera -"

"Oh God, please no, please," He whispered to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. "I - I have a family...a wife, a daughter..." He blurted out, shaking uncontrollably.

The witch, Silas, pinched his cheek sharply. "Yeah, and does your wife know that she married a narcissistic pig who allowed experiments to go forth on other people, _who also had families_?" He cocked his head to the side, eyes piercing into him, and Jason was fixated on him, his words, watching for a tiny piece of compassion, even as the other man gripped his jaw, examining him for something.

"No-no, I'm - I'm just trying to support them, please..."

"Oh, it's not me you have to worry about," Silas shrugged. "Me? I'll just hurt you. Bad. But my shadow self over there? He'll hurt you, dismember you, _and_ kill you, all in a day's work, then just do it to someone else."

Jason's insides froze solid. He looked back at the other man, who was smirking, almost sinisterly, a crazed look in his eyes.

"And you're that-that serial killer aren't you?" Jason said. He licked his lips nervously. "That one that leaves their victims in pieces, the Ripper."

The Ripper smiled. "Only sometimes." He leant forward, skimming his finger against Jason's neck, tracing the translucent veins. "Only in _here_." He pointed to his chest. "Normally I can keep him locked away, but now? Let's just say desperate times call for desperate measures."

And then without warning, he jammed his fangs into Jason's throat and tore through his carotid artery.

He was too far gone to even scream.

 **-X-**

 **The Armoury, West Virginia.**

Caroline shrieked as an alarm vibrated around her cell. Initially she thought it was an aneurysm, but then she realised the sound wasn't in her head; it resonates throughout the entire building.

Pushing herself off of her mattress, she hurried to the window, searching for a clue as to what was happening, when she saw her door cracked open.

The circuit had been broken.

She didn't wait one second and, though weakened by her lack of blood and vervain, she stumbled out of her cell, shoving open the now compliant door, and stepped out into the empty corridor. Why was it empty? Usually there was someone watching, but no one lingered. Wait, correction, an unconscious man lay at the end of the corridor by the door, arm outstretched, as though he had been reaching for it. Veins surged beneath her eyes, and without thinking twice, Caroline sped over and buried her fangs in his throat, relishing in the fresh, coppery taste hitting her pallette, her senses heightening, her strength restored the more she drank.

"Care?" A voice ripped her back into reality, and she stopped, looking over her shoulder, muscles tensed. She relaxed when she saw it was Damon, but wasn't overjoyed. She had been hoping for someone else.

"Damon, thank God," she moved to stand up, but her head spun, and she fell back onto the floor.

"Hey, hey, c'mere," Damon grabbed her wrists and hoisted her up, supporting her weight with his arms. "You're lucky I have to come through this way." He smirked as she sagged against him. "That's what you get for drinking blood with strong sedatives in it after being starved for five years."

"Glad to see you're still an ass." She mumbled, as he hurried her down the corridor and out the open door.

"Glad to see you haven't changed a bit." He retorted, unlocking a car.

"Mmm hmm." She nodded, her vision blurring, her limbs becoming heavy with fatigue. Damon had to lift her to place her into the car. She felt the door close, then Damon slide in next to her as he gunned the engine and sped out of the carpark. She squeezed her eyes shut, exhaustion washing over her, and felt her head slam into the window.

"Ow!" She mumbled, bending her head forward. That snapped her awake.

"Oi, Blondie! Blondie! You okay?"

"Urgh," Caroline sat up away from the window, rubbing her aching head. "Yeah, other than being on the run with you, I'm just great!"

"Just checking!" Damon called cheerily, and _how_ was he even being cheery and happy after the events of the last eight years and their current predicament? "I'd hate to tell Stefan that you died because I failed to take care of you, you know."

"Funny, 'cause I for one, would love to see his face as you did so."

Damon laughed, then looked at her sombrely. "Seriously, though, are you okay?" It was a loaded question.

She sighed, and shook her head. "I don't know." She fought the urge to cry.

"Me neither." He muttered. She looked at him, but he didn't elaborate if it was about the betrayal that led to their capture, the research, or both.

It was both that had nearly destroyed her. That had shattered her hopes of ever seeing the twins again.

She blinked rapidly, trying to stay awake. "First things first, we need to find a way to get rid of these trackers." She pointed to the base of her skull, but it was a sluggish movement. "Then -"

"Yeah, we find the others."

"That's the most important thing. We've scattered. We need to reunite, before they find us again, I mean, what if -"

"Hey, it's gonna be fine, don't worry, Care bear," he said reassuringly. He touched her hand, and smiled. "We'll find the others. We'll find my brother. And the twins." His eyes darkened.

"Even if we have to tear the world apart to do it."

 **-X-**

 **Brooklyn, New York.**

Tyler Lockwood slammed headfirst into a locker door, pain exploding through his skull, liquid trickling down his neck. The concussion wouldn't have been so bad, except he had three broken ribs, and was pretty sure he wouldn't ever have an intact nose again.

"I suppose it's too much to ask for to spare my liver from the battering." He coughed drily.

Katherine Pierce stepped back into his line of sight, holding a splintered baseball bat. "I was aiming for a puncture in your lungs, so I could see you _struggle_ for your every breath, until your heart gives out from the pressure," she stated calmly, cocking her head to the side and examining him. "but I suppose destroying your ability to consume any alcohol and control your sugar levels would be amusing to watch too." She prodded him with her heel. "Of course there's always making you strangle yourself, then we could always try out a game where I time how long it takes to saw your limbs off, and we could decorate you," her expression turned from thoughtful to flighty. "With chocolate sauce. Or sprinkles, maybe cake…"

"You're sick." Tyler spat, struggling to sit up. "You insane bitch."

Her face tightened, and she swung her bat onto her shoulder. She looked down on him, her scowl even worse on her emaciated face. "Hunger will do that to you." Katherine snarled. "I haven't had a decent meal in nearly a decade." She swung her leg out and connected. She heard one of Tyler's legs crack, and took great satisfaction in hearing him scream again. "Ah, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'll just feed from you."

"Is that why you're here? A feeding session? You could have gone down to the nearest hospital, but no, you tracked _me_ down and followed me from work. Why bother?" Of course, as soon as he started speaking, he knew the answer.

Her face, pale white, flushed angrily in response. Her eyes flashed, bright with pain, and not for the first time, he saw the striking similarities between her and Elena. "Let me ask you something, Tyler." In that same, calm, controlled voice. "If you lost your child to an entirely preventable cause, would you burn on the inside with self-loathing? Smother it with vengeful fantasies of the person responsible?" She knelt down, inches away from his face. "When you have a child, _that's_ what I want you to remember. To live in fear, that one day, you'll have to watch them die, for your misdoings, and." she broke a splint from her bat. "That they'll ask you, where you got those scars on your face from, and you'll have to keep on lying, or tell them that you murdered someone because you hated her mother, and risk them hating _you_."

He looked at her, her pain, for a split-second, before she yanked his head up and drove the splint right through his nose. A screech ripped itself from his throat as she twisted it deeper, blood spraying over her everywhere, and she laughed and laughed, his screams mingling with her glee in the air, creating an awful catawallowing.

Eventually, he stopped screaming, clawing fruitlessly at the wood and whimpering at the pain. She scoffed in disgust and stood back up.

"Luckily for you, I have a much more pressing matter at hand than your stupid screeching right now. Have you got a phone? I need to call someone, and it's urgent."

He grunted some sort of garbled nonsense through the blood and his broken nose, but whatever it was didn't matter, as Katherine rolled him over onto his front and began checking his pockets. Finding his phone, she turned it on, and used the emergency keypad to type in her desired number and pressed it to her ear, willing it to pick up. And then it did.

"Hello?"

Relief flooded through her. Silas's plan to hide his sim card on him had worked. "Hey, it's me, where are you?"

"I'm in Whitmore with Stefan." Silas replied. "How fast can you get here?"

"Well, that depends on my location, and whether or not Tyler survives the next hour." She turned to Tyler. "Where are we again?"

He muttered something like, "New York," and she relayed the information back to Silas.

"I'll just get a plane out or something. I should be there in a few hours."

"A few hours?"

"People might get difficult and may need...disposing of."

Silas laughed. "God, I've missed you." She felt something warm in her chest, and she smiled.

There was a pause, and then he spoke again. "How are you? Did they - did they hurt you?"

"Yeah." She nodded, shutting her eyes and pushing away the images. "Yeah they did, because I thought I'd never see you again, let alone speak to you. I was all alone."

"I'm glad that I provide good company." He quipped, and this time, she laughed.

"Um, I've gotta go, but I will see you and Stefan soon, okay? Text me your address and then remember to delete it right afterwards and throw your phone. They won't be far behind and they have a tendency to phone stalk."

"Okay."

She hung up and pocketed the phone, then turned back to Tyler, flipping open her pocket knife again. She kicked him swiftly in the head, knocking him back and stunning him, before grabbing his wrist and slicing deep into it.

She watched the blood well over his hand for a moment, watched the blood flow from the body of the man who had killed her daughter, had killed her humanity.

And then she drank from it.

 **-X-**

Matt was sorting through a file of cold cases when his phone rang. Seeing Bonnie's name, he ignored it, letting it go to voicemail. Whatever it was wouldn't be that important, probably to do with the Thanksgiving party next month or something.

Which was what he thought before she called him four more times and sent him a series of tests demanding that he pick up and listen to her voicemail as soon as possible.

Sighing, Matt put down his file and clicked on the voicemail. What he heard sent shivers down his spine. " _Hey, it's Bonnie. Call me back soon. Matt, we got a postcard, and if you got one too, you know what it means. We need to leave -"_

Matt tersely hung up the phone, and looked at the mail on his table.

Sticking out from the middle was a piece of card.

He marched over to it, plucking it out from the pile and crumbled it up without so much as a glance at the cryptic message on it. Five years. Five years of relative peace, and now all of that was set to end for good. Well, he wouldn't let it. Matt hadn't fought this hard to get vampires out of his life for nothing. For all he knew, it was a joke. A joke to get him running and scared right into a trap. No, he wouldn't let himself be duped this time.

His phone, still clutched in his hand, vibrated, shocking him out of his thoughts. He looked at it, and saw his reminder to meet a member of the Armoury in twenty minutes and sighed, grabbing his keys.

He arrived in ten minutes and saw Tony Cross, one of the head assistants in the Armoury who had replaced Alex after her... disappearance when she opened the vault, and who also doubled as a police officer to track down supernatural crimes. He helped Matt keep vampires away from Mystic Falls, so proved to be a good ally.

"Thanks for coming, man." Tony shook his hand. "Sorry for arranging a meeting this late, but this really is important."

"No problem sir, anything I can do to help." Matt replied. "What's wrong?"

"We have a case that took place just thirty miles from here. Since you're the Chief in the department nearest to it, we figured we'd alert you first." Tony removed a small folder from his coat pocket and examined it. "A Jason Drinkwell, an IT technician for the Armoury, disappeared last night. His wife reported him missing this morning after he failed to return home, and when we visited his office, we found him." Toby took a deep breath. "Just sitting there, pale and unmoving. And then when we went to examine him...his head rolled completely off his shoulders. His neck was covered in bite marks."

Chills ran up Matt's spine. Bonnie's words came back to him, and he tightly clenched the postcard into a crumpled ball in his pocket. "And? Obviously _you_ wouldn't be telling me this unless there was something else deeper involved." Maybe it was just a coincidence, nothing more.

"Yeah." Another deep breath. "Last night, about an hour before Jason was killed, the vampires you sold out to us...they escaped."

Rage swept through him, so powerful, he could perhaps forget his fear. "What do you mean they _escaped_?" Matt asked, gripping the handrail tightly.

"I mean, that something happened, a breach in security maybe, it doesn't matter, but all the cells were unlocked electronically, and the prisoners all fled, scattered." He tipped his hat back. "They're stunned and scared, for now, but they'll regroup. And we can't let that happen."

"What? Why not? They're just vampires and witches you've captured before. What's the problem?"

"Well...they..." He hesitated, and Matt stiffened.

"For God's sake, what is it?"

"The Armoury didn't keep them just because _you_ reported them. They wanted subjects to experiment on...witches and vampires."

"Wait, _what_?"

"And, it hasn't been determined as of yet..." Tony chewed his lip, in a worryingly nervous way, Matt thought, to speak about the true nature of the participant's...captivity. "or not the experiments actually worked."

"What kind of experiments?" Matt persisted.

Tony paused. "Nothing you need to worry about, unless it turns out that they worked. And it's very unlikely," he added as Matt scoffed. "That they did. In the last four years, none of the three used for the research expressed any sort of change to prove us wrong."

"Look, it doesn't matter at the moment. If they don't know what was happening, they won't be able to use it as a weapon against us, just _tell_ me that you can track them."

"We do keep a tracker injected into them at all times, in case they block locator spells or we need to transport them or use them to work against supernatural criminal activity, so yes, we can track them, but three of them are moving very quickly, it seems, out of Virginia, so we're going to need all the help we can get."

"Okay, I can get my team on it." Matt nodded.

"Thanks, I'll call later," Tony turned to head down the stairs, then turned back around. "And don't worry, we'll have them back soon."

Matt wished he could believe him, but something in Tony's eyes told him that this grand escape was only the beginning.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Armoury labs, West Virginia, approximately twelve hours ago.**

 _Doctor Robert Schun wheeled his patient round to the operating table, pulling back the sheet to note any physical changes made since the last procedure. He pulled the bed up into a sitting position to gain easier access to him, then picked up a recorder from his pocket._

 _"Research 109, this is Robert Schun. Patient 0506 is being trialled again for the twenty third time." He clicked off the recorder, and bent down to the equipment tray, picking up a syringe filled with a dark, thick liquid. He pulled off the plastic around the needle, and approached Silas, who glared at him sinisterly, bound from his sarcastic commentary by the bind taped to his mouth._

 _"Try not to tense." Schun said matter of factly. "It'll only make it worse for you."_

 _Silas, of course, only tensed his muscles even further, rattling his chair to get away. A rope around his wrist frayed, twisted loose by his mind, unnoticed by the doctor._

 _"All right," Doctor Schun bent down over him with a needle. "This may hurt more than the last few, but it'll only last a -"_

 _Crack! The disgusting noise of his head meeting the corner of the table filled the room. Blood spilled as his head split like a melon upon impact, and he slumped wordlessly to the floor, the syringe rolling away._

 _Silas telekinetically loosened his hands out of the bindings, fumbling with his fingers to loosen his restraints. He jumped to his feet, ripping the tape on his face off, throwing the binds to the floor and smirked. Suppose it was easy enough to plan an escape when the doctors and guards got so precocious in their power that they forgot just how powerful_ he _was when not sedated property. He kicked the torture table over, watching instruments roll to the floor. The syringe caught his eye, and he snatched it up, emptying its contents down the sink._

 _Static filled the room. Silas jumped as a voice echoed around him."Doctor? Are you okay? We heard a commotion in the lab, is the participant still strapped down?" It was the guards outside. He swore as he tried in vain to locate the source. Why were they still here? It was getting late into the evening._

" _Doctor? Please respond." Ah, there it was! He grabbed it out of the doctor's pocket, stepping carefully around the blood seeping across the ground._

 _"Yes, yes this is Schun." Silas replied in a poor imitation of said doctor, hoping the signal was too crappy to be heard properly. "I had a few complications, but it's all under control, the participant is now fully sedated." He tossed the walkie-talkie away from him, then pocketed a scalpel, grabbed the doctor and dragged him towards the door and scanned his hand. The door unlocked, and slid smoothly open._

 _As predicted, the guards turned and saw him as the door opened._

" _What the -" the first man was cut off as Silas jammed the scalpel into his throat and then he used his magic to snap the other one's neck before he could react. He tried to get the uniform off the man, but his broken neck and the angle of his body made his efforts futile, so he stepped around the bodies and quickly hurried away from the labs, past the cells; he wouldn't be able to get in anyway, they were electronically sealed, and wandered around for a good five minutes looking for the control room. He spotted a map on a wall and traced his steps, checking for it. Once found, he dived down another corridor, anxiously watching for any guards, then finally stumbled across a plain wooden door. He could hear other people inside, and wasted no time getting what he wanted._

 _The door, ironically the only one not sealed electronically in the entire building, flew open under his power. Before the two inside could react, he'd flung the woman headfirst into a wall and thrown the other technician into the control panel. He stared at the screens showing all the cells and the labs, then at the buttons, completely lost, and then briefly wondered why he hadn't spent more of his little time in modern Earth in college or studying IT._

 _He heard a groan as one of the technicians sat up, rubbing his sore head. Roughly grabbing his arm, Silas hauled him to his feet and thrust him in front of the control panel._

" _Disable all the CCTV cameras and unlock all the cells in the entire building, before I show you your intestines." Silas hissed menacingly, digging his fingers into the man's back._

 _The man shakily complied, pressing a series of buttons and entering commands. Up on the main screen, Silas saw a series of doors unlock, and immediately red lights started flashing as the computer system warned of the compromise in security, and instantly began streaming information._

" _What's it doing?" Silas demanded as the computer kept doing its weird flashy thing._

" _It's a - a backup program. If all the cells are compromised and we can't call for backup, all the CCTV and information on how to lock the cells is sent to another IT department and they save it and contact security and reestablish order." The man stammered._

" _Where is this IT office?"_

" _Upstairs. You can get there through the fire escape."_

" _Great." Silas threw the man into the floor, knocking him out, and wasted no time in getting out, heading down the corridors and back towards the labs. He strode down into the cell section and opened the door containing the only occupant._

" _Stefan! Wake up!" He said, slapping his face, but Stefan still hung there by chains, dead to the world; an unfortunate side-effect of ingesting extra sedation. "Come on, Stef, I got us out!" He fumbled with the chains. An alarm began resonating throughout the building,and Silas hurriedly tugged on them even more. Only one link snapped, so he gave up and clutched onto the cuffs around Stefan's wrists and began whispering in Latin. The cuffs started sparking as they burned and melted away from the chains. Stefan stirred and moaned in pain as the metal seared his flesh and peeled away from the chains altogether. He slumped to the floor, and snapped awake, wincing against the light and the shrill alarm. Silas sighed in relief._

" _Stefan, we have to go."_

 _Grabbing an unsteady Stefan from the floor, he yanked him to his feet, and dragged him relentlessly down the corridor, again passing the labs, and stepped over the remaining guard in sight. The other one was nowhere to be seen, other than a blood trail leading away from the labs. Damn it. He should have checked that one. He sped up his movements, practically throwing Stefan into the fire escape ahead of him. He locked the door behind them using magic, and_

 _There were two doors. One presumably led down to the tunnels, whilst the other, on top of a flight of stairs, must have led up to the top floor. Cursing his lack of vampric strength, he slung a loose arm around his shoulders as he prepared to ascend the stairs, but Stefan reared back, now wide awake, legs kicking as he struggled away from him._

" _Hey, what are you doing?" Silas exclaimed as Stefan tried to fumble unsuccessfully back towards the door._

" _We can't leave Caroline and Damon! Let me go back for them!"_

" _No we can't!" He hissed. "They're too far away! If we do it only increases our chances of being caught and it won't help!" Silas grabbed his arm and looked at him earnestly. "We'll come back for them, I promise."_

 _Stefan looked at him wide-eyed, before Silas continued up the stairs, holding onto his arm._

 _They burst up into the Armoury office, and Silas took in a quick inventory, vainly searching for the IT office. He needed to delete all the footage as soon as possible._

 _Stefan was still looking doggedly at the fire escape, so Silas sighed, and grabbed his neck, turning his face towards him._

" _Hey, after we get rid of that footage, we will find them." He muttered heatedly. His thoughts flashed briefly to Katherine, who he had last heard from a guard was on her way to New York, and hoped that that same fate hadn't befallen Damon and Caroline. "Okay?" He looked back around, and saw a door labeled 'IT' in the far corner. "And, you help me get rid of anyone standing in our way." He gestured to the office, and Stefan's blank eyes flickered towards it. Veins crawled beneath his eyes as they saw movement, indicating that a human was present._

" _Okay."_

 _Silas relinquished his hold. "Invisi Que." he muttered, and they both melted into the shadows. He crossed the room as quickly and quietly as possible, feeling his doppelgänger on his heels, and nudged the door further open another inch. Inside, he saw a man of average height wearing a coat locking up a cabinet. He must have been about to leave. A USB stick caught his eye; it was plugged into the computer, which appeared to be downloading information._

 _What a shame he would never leave his office._

 _He stepped carefully inside the room, brushing past the door into the room. Stefan slid in after him and melted away into the shadows in the corner of the room. They both watched as the man finished packing his suitcase, calmly, almost happily. It was apparent that he didn't yet know about the security breach, but it was still imperitive he didn't look at that USB. The more time they bought for themselves, the better._

 _Whilst the man's back was still turned, Silas held out his hand and the USB flew out of the computer port towards him and he caught it in midair._

 _The man turned, clutching his suitcase, back towards the computer. His eyes widened as he realised the USB was gone, and he began searching, trying in vain, to Silas' amusement, to keep that calm demeanor. Ah well, he supposed it didn't matter now that his time was up._

 _His invisibility evaporated, and he held up the USB._

" _Looking for this?"_

 **-X-**

 **New York, ten hours ago.**

 _They say you should never ignore your instincts._

 _And Katherine, survivor extraordinaire, normally would have been the first to heed that advice, especially being a witch, if only she wasn't being handcuffed and sedated whilst being locked in the very plane her instincts fought against._

 _Something bad was going to happen. She'd known it from the moment they'd arrived at the airport._

 _And that only made her more anxious at every little drop in speed or the pilot's movements._

" _What's going on?" She demanded, as something in the plane sparked and they jerked in the air._

" _Just turbulence." her guard assured her, as they dipped violently in the air again._

" _It sure doesn't feel like turbulence." She muttered. Her guard shot a warning glare at her, and waved the control to her handcuffs at her mockingly as he passed her to get to the pilot cabin. She rolled her eyes and turned to face the window. The last thing she needed on top of being shipped off to god-knows-where after the nasty...incident which had befallen one of the lab assistants in a tiny plane, designed to be hidden in the sky and seemed to be only able to hold about ten people was some stupid guard asserting his power over her._

 _The engine sparked again, and she looked at it in alarm. Why on earth had the guard left the pilot door open?_

" _Is everything alright?" He asked. The pilots were looking at flashing screens and pulling levers._

" _Actually no, there seems to be some sort of malfunction in the -"_

 _The plane suddenly dropped downwards, plummeting towards the ground and she slid sideways, tugged uncontrollably down by the heavy metal cuffs. Her guard, at the front talking to the pilot, was thrown with surprising force down at the panel, his head smacking against the side. He slid to the floor, unconscious as the one of the pilots scrabbled at a first aid kit._

" _Ah!" She shrieked as the cuffs dug into her skin, dragging her wrists down as the plane lost altitude. She yanked them up, almost tilting sideways with the effort, and grabbed onto a pole to pull herself up and headed towards the back of the plane backwards, watching the remaining pilot, who was steadying the plane to land, speaking frantically into a headpiece and wasn't doing a great job at multi-tasking. The plane juddered and shook uncontrollably, and Katherine grabbed onto a pole to steady herself._

 _The plane dipped down, heading straight for the ground. For a minute, it glided in the air without a problem, then suddenly jerked sideways. Katherine felt the shudder of the impact vibrate through her as the plane fell gracelessly into the ground, skidding sideways. The force of the flew into the wall and her head smacked into plaster. Hot pain bloomed across her skull, and she tasted blood on her tongue as she struggled to move back from the sparking engine as the plane finally ground to a halt, teetering precariously on its burnt wheels._

 _Quickly, she surveyed her injuries. A bitten tongue, some bruised bones, and a possible concussion, but nothing too serious, which meant the plane couldn't have been more than a few feet off the ground when the engine failed, and also meant she could make a quick escape._

 _She scrambled to her feet, fumbling around for a moment as she found her balance, which wasn't an easy feat with handcuffs, by placing her chained hands on the opposite wall and making her way towards the doors. The plane was overbalanced, tipped onto one side, the wing the only thing keeping it from toppling over, which unfortunately meant the door was still several feet off the floor, and faced the ground._

 _Ah well, you only live once or twice._

 _She viciously kicked at the door. It dented slightly, and she swore at the pain lancing through her ankle. She was still without her magic. She kicked again, and again, until the fifth time, where her supernatural spiritual strength hit and the door cracked open, and she pushed it further apart with her hands. She grinned at the grass beneath her, and prepared to jump out when something grabbed her ankle. She whipped back round tensely, until she saw it was one of the pilots, who had apparently dragged herself across the floor away from the engine, cradling her arm._

" _Please…" she choked out and Katherine rolled her eyes._

" _Maybe if you hadn't been taking me to a research clinic, I might have had some compassion for your pathetic condition. But," she lifted a shoulder. "You know what they say, every woman for themselves." She waved at the woman, then ducked out of the door and jumped into the ground._

 _She staggered away from the plane and toppled back over after about five steps on her bad leg. She stood up and giggled, her hands jangling in front of her, still loosely bound together, surprisingly painless. The electric current restricting her ability to pull them apart for some reason appeared to had been deactivated. She held them up in front of her, then as hard as she could muster, pulled her wrists apart._

 _The metal chain snapped cleanly. Katherine staggered back a few steps from the force, before reclaiming her balance. She looked back at the lifeless plane and smiled when she saw no movement, nobody struggling to escape._

 _Now she was free, free to hunt for her revenge, the deed she had desperate to achieve for eight years:_

 _Find Tyler Lockwood._

 **-X-**

 **Present Time.**

"Caroline." Something shook her arm, disrupting her sleep. She burrowed away from it, determined to remain asleep, but still it persisted. "Caroline!" More vigorous shaking.

"What?" She snapped at Damon, moving away and trying to go back to sleep.

"Catch!" And suddenly she had a faceful of hair in her mouth. She shrieked and slapped it off, thinking Damon had delivered her a head, but it was only a wig. A black haired one.

She glared at him as he chortled, seeing he had his own disguise with a curly brown wig and a flannel shirt and jeans. He looked ridiculous. "Put it on, Blondie!" He tossed her a bag. She peeked inside it and saw fresh clothes, a toothbrush, deodorant and face wipes. Though relieved at the chance to change out of the prison wear, she still rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"You woke me up for this?"

"At our last rest stop, you told me to wake you up when we made it to the airport."

She grunted at him.

"And we're here, now get out so you can change clothes, and we can ditch this car and get a flight out of this country." He unbuckled her seatbelt impatiently and jumped out of the car. Caroline followed suit, taking a moment to stretch her legs and appreciate the sun's warmth on her face. She hadn't felt seen or felt the sun in nearly two years, and oddly enough, her experience cooped up in the dark, an environment suited for a vampire, made her appreciate the fresh air, the sun's killing rays, and the warmth surrounding her, one daylight ring away from burning her to a crisp.

Speaking of…

She turned to face Damon. "Did you find a way to contact anyone?"

"No, I didn't stop to buy a phone, but we'll do it in the next country. Track phone signals, hire witches to do locator spells, send out a signal, whatever it takes to find the others." He said determinedly. "I overheard one of the guards mentioning something about one of us being transferred to a unit in New York, so maybe we'll find answers there." It was his confidence that reassured her; yes, they would find them, Stefan, Katherine, even Silas. No matter what it took.

"But...there's also the problem of these." He touched the back of his neck, the small lump where the tracker restricting their freedom lay. Caroline nodded. "We can compel a doctor to remove them as soon as we find a hospital."

"Sounds good. Now," he pointed to the boot. "Get changed, brush your teeth, preferably into the bag and get that wig on."

She pulled the boot up and jumped in. "Why can't I brush my teeth in the bathroom?" she asked, pulling off the gritty, stained shirt.

"Because your mouth is covered in blood and it would be quite unsettling, so would draw unnecessary attention." He said condescendingly, turning away as she threw her shirt at him. She quickly fitted on a clean bra, sprayed some deodorant, used the wipes to clean up and wipe her face and quickly scrubbed her teeth after pulling on the top and leggings, then, regrettably, slid the wig on.

She jumped back out, clutching the deodorant, and looked at a smirking Damon as she dumped the bag with her dirty clothes in the car. "There." She shook her head and black strands flew. "Happy now?"

"Very. Black is your colour." He winked. As they both walked away, he suddenly grabbed her hand. She squeezed it, and he squeezed back, seeking comfort from each other's presence, as they headed into the airport. She saw Damon put on a winning smile at a flight attendant, and briefly wondered if he had fed since they fled the Armoury as he leant on the desk for balance.

Once their tickets to New York were handed to them, using fake names of course, Damon compelled the attendant to forget any details about their appearance, and Caroline quickly ushered him onto the plane.

"Where are we where are we?" She scanned the tickets. She looked around, found their seat and threw herself into it, grinning as Damon shook his head at her antics, curly wig bobbing, and sat down next to her.

"I know you've had an extra hour's sleep, but please try to contain yourself. Us old folk need our rest." He smirked mockingly. She rolled her eyes, and sifted through the chair pockets and found a magazine. She flicked through it briefly, before stopping and turning to him.

"Damon?"

"Mmm?" He looked at her, eyes half-lidded.

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad you're here."

He smiled at her. "Me too."

 **-X-**

 **Mystic Falls.**

Matt stared heatedly at the two dots on the screen. They had slowed considerably since arriving in New York, and he was convinced. Convinced it was her.

And he was convinced that she would pay for what she had done.

He saw a car pulling up and turned off the tablet and set it down angrily on the seat next to him. Bonnie got out of the driver's seat, followed by Enzo. Both looked as drained as he felt.

"Hey," Bonnie said as she approached him.

"Hi." He tried to smile, but failed.

"Have you heard any news about where they are now?" She asked without preamble. He supposed there was no time for beating around the bush.

"Not really, but I have a vague idea." He held up his phone. "I got a call from a hospital in New York because Tyler was attacked, and since I'm Tyler's next of kin -"

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, they're having him transferred to a specialist unit in the next state. It shouldn't be a problem, I know, but he uh...something's slowing his healing, and he was left with severe concussion, a broken nose and ribs, a punctured lung and internal bleeding from the broken ribs." He closed his eyes as Tyler's battered body, lying there lifeless in the hospital came to mind. "Not to mention, he developed septicemia and has to have antibiotics along with general anaesthetics because he has to have several operations to...to realign his…collarbone..." he breathed in sharply, unable to finish. Bonnie took his hand reassuringly.

"But he'll be okay?"

"Yeah, eventually. Lucky he's a werewolf, otherwise he wouldn't have even survived the journey to the hospital. If he survives till the next full moon in three weeks, he'll be fine."

"But you think it's them." Enzo said. "Or at least Katherine."

"Yeah. The Armoury files say she was on a flight there yesterday, which means she was in New York around twelve hours ago, so could be one of the two who are in New York right now. But, the trouble is, we don't know who to send out because -"

"You don't know who's who." Enzo finished. He ran his hand through his hair. "If we're dealing with witches, doppelgängers or vampires and in what area."

"Yeah. And it's gonna take a little while to gather all the necessary resources together to take on all of them, since the Armoury seem to be doing whatever the hell they want."

"What do you mean?" Bonnie frowned.

Matt sighed. It was eleven in the morning, and already he was dealing with five homicidal maniacs. He could really use a cup of coffee right now. "They were...experimenting on some of them. I don't know who, or the details, but when I spoke to Tony, he seemed very intent on getting them back in case whatever it was the Armoury did actually worked."

"Well we need to find out!" Bonnie snapped. They both looked at her in surprise, and the tension left her. "Sorry, it's just...I think we need to know exactly what we're dealing with here, because for all we know, they could be tracking us right now!"

"No, no, you're right, we need to do something." Enzo sighed. "I'll speak to the Armoury, to Tony, to ask for a specialist team to head out to New York to recapture the two there. Maybe that'll lure the others back in, you know, the whole prison bonding experience, and it shouldn't be too much of a stretch."

"Thanks. I just don't have the authority or power to go above him, and I'm literally waiting for his call." Matt waved his tablet. "And the most we've got to go on is these trackers to monitor whether they're regrouping, and a few scouts in West Virginia."

Bonnie frowned. "But that makes no sense. If Tony wants them back so badly, why is he waiting so long to capture them?"

"I dunno." Matt shrugged. "He's been more focused on scanning their records, their samples, something about 'knowing what we're up against.' I'm guessing he never got round to fully testing his research."

"Which is never a good sign." Enzo murmured. "Well, I propose we leave, and soon. If we get the Armoury involved, they can help us go undercover, and it'll allow us to watch their movements." He nodded to Matt. "Keep watching their movements and call if there's any changes. I'll talk to Toby, convince him to send out more lackies, and maybe get a look at this private research."

"Okay," Matt nodded, and Bonnie agreed. "Yeah, and maybe find a witch to do a blocking spell on us."

"Good idea." Matt turned to get back in his car. "Call me later with details. I'm gonna go home and get a few things."

"I know I'm probably the only one thinking this, but don't you think something's uneasy about this situation?" He heard Bonnie mutter.

"Chasing people who want us dead is by definition uneasy, love." Enzo chuckled. She shook her head.

"Not just that. If they barely saw each other, and were under complete lockdown and sedation, how on earth could they have gotten out?"

Matt shook his head. "I honestly have no idea. The security cameras were somehow disabled and we can't retrieve them."

And that idea scared him more than anything.

 **-X-**

A student bus pulled over opposite Whitmore College. Students milled out, chatting energetically, refreshed from their summer break, and Katherine quickly mingled with the crowd, wearing a purple hoodie and black leggings, a suitcase in one hand, and curly hair tamed into a high ponytail. Keeping her head down, she quickly blended in as a model student heading towards the campus dormitories.

After successfully using Elena's name to get her room keys, she quickly hopped up the stairs and unlocked the old dormitory she had temporarily shared with Caroline nearly a decade ago, and dumped the suitcase down. She checked Tyler's phone; no new messages from any number, so she assumed that all was well, and Silas and Stefan were hanging around somewhere, assuming that they could find the correct dorm.

She dragged herself over to the full body mirror and yanked out her ponytail. _Urgh,_ she winced at the dark circles under her eyes and her hollowed cheeks. She needed a proper meal and a shower. And to sleep for at least a decade. She hadn't been able to switch off on the two flights, or the bus journey, and was still somehow wired from the adrenaline of freedom. But of course, those luxuries were hard to come by when you escaped from one hell and then got thrown into another not a year later. Reliving the loneliness, the intense fear of being dragged back into that thing -

 _No!_ Katherine gripped the mirror violently and rejected the agonising memories. She couldn't let the last ten years rule her life. She had to start over, do something fulfilling with her life, other than running and living in fear.

She took a deep, calming breath, smiling weakly at her reflection, and reached behind it to find some sort of brush, when she saw a shadow jump up at the window, obscured by the thin curtain. She jumped and whipped around, a scream lodged in her throat, and grabbed the first object she saw, which happened to be a clothes hanger, and crept warily towards the window. The shadow began tapping the window incessantly, so hard she thought the glass would crack, and she grabbed the curtain, thinking desperately of some useful spells, yanked it back, and screamed anyway.

"Seriously?!"

Silas hovered on the windowsill, eyes wide at her reaction as he clutched onto the edge of the window. He gestured frantically at the lock, and Katherine quickly twisted it round, slowly opening it up to let him duck his head and twist his body to jump inside, Stefan following suit.

"Seriously Kat," Silas laughed, pointing at the clothes hanger she was still gripping. "What good would that have done? The window was locked."

"Yes, well, I'd rather be safe than sorry, you stupid prick -"

"Nice to see you too!" He smirked, dodging her attempts to hook him with the wire.

"God, why couldn't you two be normal and knock on the door instead of nearly giving me a heart attack?" She swiped playfully at him, grinning reluctantly.

"We just got the trackers cut out down at the medical centre and thought we'd come up the short way!" Silas said innocently. "It's not _our_ fault that we thought you had better sense than to think some other weirdos would come knocking at this particular dorm."

"I didn't think you were the knocking-on-the-window-of-a-third-floor-dorm kind of weirdos!"

"Hey, you stalked me for a century, you should know that that's _exactly_ the type of weirdo I am! Besides, I descend from him, enough said." Stefan jumped in, dodging away as Katherine began prodding him too, continuing to snigger childishly with Silas.

"Don't you start!" She said, giggling. "I've had a rough day. I had to escape a malfunctioning plane _and_ travel halfway across this country to get here!"

"Aww, poor baby," Silas teased, and held open his arms. "Okay, come here," she sighed, then after a moment, smiled, and fell into his chest, breathing in his familiar, earthy scent. "I missed you too. Now go shower before telling us _all_ about your little misadventures. You know," he wrinkled his nose, "Priorities and all."

She glared up at him. "Just when you were becoming more tolerable."

"It's not an insult, it's just me helping you out!"

"You have a funny way of showing it."

"I'm sorry," he said, sounding completely unapologetic, "but wouldn't you like to know that your hair looks like a hedgehog before going out into public? And trust me, I _know_ that the prison shower facilities at the Armoury aren't even worth rating."

"Keep making me feel better, _prick_." She swatted his head playfully as she pulled out of his embrace and headed into the bathroom. She looked around, seeing it had only a college-provided shampoo, conditioner and soap on the side, but no towels.

Katherine poked her head out the door. "Towels!" and was rewarded with one of the thick, fluffy things being thrown in her face. She shut the door, stripped, and quickly scrubbed her hair out with the shampoo and conditioner and spent a good half hour cleaning and rinsing away the dirt of the Armoury.

She stepped out, feeling considerably more refreshed, and dried herself off, leaving her hair to dry and reluctantly shrugging her clothes back on. She came back into the room and headed back over to the mirror, fluffing out her damp, knotted hair.

"Ah, well there's an improvement. You _almost_ look alive again."

She rolled her eyes at Silas as he and Stefan chortled at his childish comment. "If you would both kindly shut up, you'd realise we have better things to do, you know, like finding Caroline and Damon and removing this _thing_." She jabbed a finger at the back of her neck. "And I don't know about you, but I feel that Bonnie, Lorenzo and Matty are due a visit."

"Relax kitty kat," Silas stood up, holding her shoulders in a way that was immensely familiar to her, that reminded her of cold, dark emptiness, in a lonely void, where they quickly found refuge in each other. "We'll sort it. Our trackers are on their way out of Virginia, and we'll sort yours out the same way. We can track Damon through Stefan, and hopefully he'll be with Caroline."

He pointed at Stefan. "And me and Stef have the Bozo and Matt situation under control. As soon as we're all together, and all reasonably safe from the Armoury, we'll finish what they started."

She grinned, her mood lightened considerably. "You sent the postcards?"

"Written, sent, delivered, and I'm now imagining the priceless looks on their faces." Stefan said dryly, though there was a hidden delight behind his eyes as he lounged on a bed.

"So, you managed to escape, buy new clothes, find our nemesis' addresses, send them postcards, and remove your trackers all in the space of twelve hours?" She smirked. "Who are you?"

Silas smiled eagerly. His eyes always were brighter when he smiled, brighter than Stefan's. Katherine had never noticed that before. "Well, I'm stupendously amazing and all powerful, so of course I managed to escape and convince the techy people to unseal all the cells, grabbed Stefan, and -"

Stefan cleared his throat pointedly. Silas looked at him and scowled, and Stefan shook his head. "You're forgetting one major detail."

"That's because it's not major -"

"What Silas meant to start with," Stefan said loudly, with an innocent smile. "was, 'the reason I managed to escape was because…'"

Silas rolled his eyes. "My _dear_ doppelgänger took my meds for me so I had the strength to escape, then we destroyed the evidence, stole a car, picked up some clothes at a convenience store, and we looked up our 'targets' online by the way, and we found them easily enough. Matt is a hero police officer, and Bonnie's a semi-famous author, all three have Facebook, and their general location was Mystic Falls, so they've probably staying in the same houses they had five years ago. If not, we named them so someone would have given it to them by now. After we dropped the postcards off at a post office near the town, compelled one of the postmen to double-check they still lived there and to allow for a special delivery, we drove to Whitmore, and the rest you know."

"Huh." She said. "And here I was thinking that Stefan or Caroline, or _me_ would be the ones leading our escape."

"Hey, I'll have you know that it's easy enough to pretend to be unconscious after sedation and escape after Stefan the blood sucker drains it out of you." He smirked jokingly, looking at Stefan, who rolled his eyes in response. "My genius and his fangs are what got us out of this hot mess."

"Keep on believing that, buddy." Stefan stated, stacking his hands on top of his stomach. "But you know we slowly build up a natural tolerance to drugs or sedation over time, so one of us would have gotten out. It was just a matter of time."

"Huh, I think I like that idea more than the fact that _Silas_ was the one in charge of saving us." She teased, flopping onto Stefan's bed backwards. "Give me a pillow."

"Speak for yourself, miss 'I survived a malfunctioning plane'." Stefan mocked, throwing a pillow towards her. She tucked it under her head.

"Hey, it's nothing to make fun of, those could have been my last moments alive!"

"Ooh, pray tell." Silas exclaimed. She felt the bed dip, and his legs resting on top of hers.

"I was on a plane to New York when the plane somehow malfunctioned. They were able to redirect it before it crashed, and after it landed, I took advantage of their surprise to attack and escape, but I think one or two of them survived. I didn't stick around long enough to find out."

"You've finally outworn your usefulness then." Silas said. "You would have made our lives _so_ much easier if you'd just stuck to your reputation and murdered everyone even if it wasn't necessary."

"Oi!" She swung her pillow at his head as he laughed. "But I suppose I should thank you."

He glanced back at her, confused. "For what?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You know, halting the plane so I could get out."

"I didn't cause the plane to malfunction."

"What? But, you escaped, so I thought - you would have also disabled the plane around about the same time."

Silas frowned. "I didn't even know if you were still _on_ a plane, and I didn't want to risk trying to get anyone to hack it if you were still on board and didn't survive a possible crash."

Katherine's eyes narrowed. "Well, Damon and Caroline were barely out of the cells and would have been travelling cross-country, so were still focused on running, let alone finding us, so that can only mean…"

He finished her trail of thoughts. "We have someone from the outside helping us."

 **Thank you for reading! Now that they're pretty much reuniting, I am going to be doing flashbacks five years ago, to around the same time as the season 7 finale, only it'll be different to how the episode ended, and I'll also be doing some scenes in the present time to develop characters. Please drop a review, let me know if it was worth the read! And by the way, there's a reason why Silas wasn't behind the attack on the guard Caroline found, but it'll be revealed in good time.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chap 3:

 _5 years ago:_

" _Enzo!' Bonnie yelled frantically, jumping at the locked door. There was a painful thump when she smacked her body into it. "Damon! Can you hear me?"_

 _Caroline arrived shortly after, wrapping her arms around Bonnie's waist and hoisting her up and away from the door. "Get off me!" she shrieked, struggling violently, but Caroline didn't notice._

" _Bonnie, stop, it won't work. Stefan's tried." Caroline pleaded, continuing to carry her out of the corridor._

" _No! NO!" She continued to struggle against her uselessly. Her magic had abandoned her, and now all she had was her physical strength, which paled in comparison to Caroline's._

" _Stefan! Stefan, what - do something, please!" Bonnie shrieked at him, as Caroline threw her back into the hallway, but he didn't move, looking at that them all emptily._

" _That door's not opening any time soon, we can do is just...wait." Stefan had said tonelessly._

 _And wait they did. For three days, whilst Alaric managed to find and deactivate the lock on the door. It would have been a lot easier if they had a tech whiz resident, but the closest they had was Damon, who unfortunately, was...unavailable._

 _When it finally opened, they all waited outside with baited breath whilst Stefan opened the door. His shoulders slumped in relief._

" _Thank God!" Stefan sighed. He widened the door, revealing Damon and Enzo as they emerged from the vault. He reached out and hugged his brother tightly. "Damon!"_

 _Damon squeezed him back. "Hey." he muttered quietly._

" _Are you alright? What happened?" Bonnie fired off questions rapidly at Enzo, tightly hanging onto his shoulders._

" _Okay love, I'm fine." Enzo laughed, his hands wrapping round her waist. His façade faded when he looked at Damon._

" _What is it?" Caroline said sharply, glancing back and forth between them._

" _Damon?" Stefan looked at his brother searchingly. "_ What _was in there? What happened to you?"_

 _Damon and Enzo looked at each other again, like they were communicating silently, then simultaneously faced the group. "That's the thing." Damon said shakily. "It was completely empty. Like one of those old caves, rocky and dark and abandoned by any living thing."_

" _Whatever was in there, it's gone now."_

 **-X-**

"Hey," Matt turned towards the voice. Bonnie stood there, unsmiling, holding out a cup of coffee. He took it, and turned back towards the window, looking in on a sleeping Tyler.

"What's the verdict?"

"Uh, the nurse said his operation went well, he just going to need a few weeks to heal."

"A few weeks? But he doesn't need nearly that long, he should have been out of here by this morning."

"I know, which definitely makes me think more than violence was involved when Katherine attacked him." He flipped open Tyler's medical chart and showed Bonnie his X-rays and photos of his injuries before and after surgery.

"Look, his internal injuries are fine, see how his scarring and bleeding have reduced, but the lacerations to his face and body aren't healing like they should. If he can't heal, he'll be scarred for life, and possibly have nerve damage that'll restrict his movements."

"She cursed him." Bonnie said. "With black magic. That's the only way magic would have conformed to her will, to act against nature."

"Do you think she's slowed his healing by blocking his ability to turn?"

"It's possible," Bonnie shrugged. "But that's not my biggest worry. In the space of a few hours, she managed to track and curse Tyler, and using a spell of disfigurement and anti-healing? That's serious black magic that requires a _lot_ of power and emotion that she wasn't able to do when she returned from Oblivion."

"She's getting stronger. That could mean the others are too."

"We need to keep up the searching. I'll call Enzo to get any updates." Bonnie closed the medical chart.

"It's vital that we find them before they find us."

 **-X-**

"Do you think we'll find them in time?"

"Hmm?" Katherine looked away from Silas as he did a locator spell on Damon at Stefan, slouching on the bed. He looked empty inside, and she felt for him. God knows how she would be if she hadn't found Silas in time. As if reading he thoughts, he looked up at her in the middle of the spell and smiled, and she realised she'd gone back to staring at him. She pushed the thought away and sat back down next to Stefan.

"Damon and Caroline." He continued. "Do you think we'll find them before they do with the trackers?"

"Yes, Stefan. We will." Her hand came to rest at the nape of his neck. "We always do."

"What if we find Damon, but he's not with Caroline? What if she never got out?"

Katherine stroked his hair absentmindedly. "We'll cross that bridge later. First we'll find Damon, then meet up with him to find out if he has Caroline with him or knows her location. Then we find a way into the Armoury. Power in numbers, remember?"

He stared at her, and she smiled, but it didn't feel real enough to reassure her, let alone him.

"It's nice that one of us still has hope." He smiled back.

"Damon's in New York." Silas said suddenly.

Katherine straightened and glanced back at Silas, who was sat upright, away from the map. He was looking over at them, a blank expression on his face. She let go of Stefan's hair, trying to destroy the tension between them. "What? I just came from there." She slouched down on her elbows. "Just our luck."

"Yeah, and I'm guessing your arrival was his only lead."

Stefan sat up. "Do you think he took Caroline with him?" He asked Silas desperately. "Did you see her?"

Silas shrugged. "I didn't get a visual but it's possible. The only way to know for sure is, like Katherine said, to get a message to him or meet him."

Katherine stood up from the bed. "Do you have a phone?" She asked him. "Like a smartphone that has internet?"

"Yeah," He passed his over to her. "What are you doing?"

"Sending a message to Damon." She smirked, typing rapidly. "Oh, Stefan, go and stop the delivery taking our trackers out of the country."

The two men looked at each other, dumbfounded. "Uh, why?" Stefan asked. "That'll just lead us right to them."

"Not if we're careful." She smiled at them.

"Trust me. I have a plan that'll lead us right to vengeance."

 **-X-**

"Damon, when I said book us into a motel, cheap and third-class wasn't what I had in mind." Caroline grumbled as she came back into the bedroom. "That bathroom makes me want to go running back to the Armoury."

"Hey, tactics, Blondie," Damon shook his head. "They won't think we'll book ourselves into a cheap, third-class motel after they discover our trackers have been removed. Classic evasion skills."

"Great, and _how_ long do we have to stay here for?" She asked, peeking out of the window blinds. "I'm concerned for my hygiene in this room just by _standing_ in it." She grimaced at the dusty windowpane.

Damon sighed, never looking up from his laptop. "However long it takes for me to search the internet for any clues my brother may have left us, Blondie."

"Please, you've been on that thing for two hours now. Haven't you found anything?"

"No, not with you breathing down my neck and having to do this solo."

" _You_ were the one who insisted that I stay away from the laptop!"

Damon glared at her. "Just come over here, maybe your mouth will stop moving uselessly if you can give some suggestions."

Caroline folded her arms and reluctantly made her way over to him. The last three hours since arriving here had been nothing but fruitless, apart from the tracker removal at the hospital. Now all they were achieving was hiding out in a dingy motel and poring obsessively over the Internet.

"Try looking up animal attacks in Mystic Falls."

"Done that. Last news report was two years ago."

"What about disappearances near that area?"

He looked at her. "You mean from West Virginia? The Armoury?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, maybe one of them attacked someone and a police report was made."

"No, they'd want to keep this a secret. They wouldn't release it to anyone."

She dragged her hands through her hair. "How about any news stories in New York? One of us was here, and they may have caused a scene."

Damon glared at her condescendingly. "I checked already Blondie. Nothing abnormal of any sort."

"Yeah, but that was like two hours ago. There could be updates." She snatched the laptop from him.

"Hey, put it down!"

"Hang on, jerk! I promise I won't damage your precious screen." She typed furiously and refreshed the page. She clicked on news articles, and one written an hour beforehand popped up and she clicked on it.

"'Man found in severe condition in car park.'" She read aloud, and scrolled to the text. Her eyes widened in shock. The man was unidentified, but even from his disfigured face and the grainy photo she'd know him anywhere.

"Oh my God!" She muttered. "Tyler!"

"What?" Damon demanded, grabbing the laptop back and looking at it. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I've known him my entire life, Damon, I'm sure!"

"Then that means…"

"Katherine's the one in New York. She's the only one who has true motivation and reason to attack him."

Damon whistled. "Damn, she got him good. Remind me not to piss her off -"

"Damon, stop wittering for one moment, and use your brain for something else like contacting her."

Damon shot her a withering look. "It's not like she stamped a forwarding address on Tyler's forehead before she packed him in, Caroline." He replied dryly.

She ignored him and continued focusing on the photo. Maybe Katherine had left something there, a clue as to where she was. She zoomed in, though the quality of the image meant that everything in the background was nothing but a blur. She gave up and scrolled down to the bottom of the page, which showed a comment section. Only three had been posted, and one that caught her attention.

"Wait, maybe she did leave something for us after all."

"What? Where?" Damon grabbed the laptop from her.

"The comment section." She pointed out. Damon looked at the most recent one, left twenty eight minutes beforehand anonymously, and glanced at Caroline.

"Looking for two at the place where it all began, and where life as we know it ended. Bring a headstone.' A headstone? Why -" Realisation hit him.

"The place where it all began. The world's first immortal being, the immortality cure. Qetsiyah's headstone." he muttered.

They grinned at each other.

"We have to go to Nova Scotia."

 **-X-**

"Enzo, call me back." Matt said hurriedly into his phone. "You and Bonnie need to meet me now. We found three of them, and they're currently just outside of Mystic Falls." He hung up, and started the car, veering out of the carpark onto the road. He'd been watching the trackers for hours, and when they came close to Mystic Falls, and with CCTV footage showing two men similar in build matching Stefan's description, and a disguised woman getting into a van and heading towards the woods, pinpointing their hideout was easy enough, and he'd immediately set off there with a team.

He wasn't ready to lose this battle, and he certainly wasn't taking any chances that whatever he had started would be finished by them.

As he approached the site where the trackers were, he stopped about half a mile away to avoid being seen, and the other patrol cars stopped right behind him. Looking up, he saw a large forest ahead, and began approaching. The team spread out into smaller groups, and it took about five minutes before an officer identified a van in a clearing, and another five for him to arrive on the scene with most of the team.

Matt made a circling motion with his finger wordlessly at the van, and the officers rushed to surround it, wooden bullets at the ready.

Two pulled open the back doors and the guns swung up.

The van was empty.

Matt blinked several times to clear the seething red in his eyesight. Then he took a deep breath very slowly and approached the van.

"Well, they were here, but it seems they were tipped off, because they're not here anymore." One of his colleagues said. He heard a walkie-talkie buzz.

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and looked at the map with the tracking devices, showing their exact location.

Which unfortunately happened to be right on top of the van itself.

Matt jumped up into the van, kneeling down, searching frantically for them, hoping for an explanation, hoping that their one lead, their one way to stay ahead of them, hadn't been foiled. That this wasn't a set up.

His hope failed when he saw the three trackers in the middle of the floor.

And, right next to the pile of trackers, there was a folded piece of paper, with his name written on the back in a recognised font.

He opened it.

 _Dear Matty,_

 _Only amateurs seek something they think is easy, when it is never found. It finds you. We're coming back for you, Matty, and you know what happens next._

Right underneath the threatening note, was the scribble that meant everything. The one that sent chills down his spine, a hidden promise.

"Sir?" An officer finally spoke. "Sir, what would you like us to do now?"

Matt tore the paper into strips, and then flung them into the ground, before turning on his heel and marching off.

"For now we leave it. Go home."

 **Please drop a review, tell me how you're finding my "season 8" so far.**


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